How the future of work, school learning looks like

Covid-19 pushed almost every company, governments, and learning institutions to work from home.

IT giant, Miscrosoft made available its Teams product, a dedicated and private virtual platform that enables employees, businesses as well as institutions of learning to run their programmes.

Teams also allows holding of virtual conferences that up to 20,000 participants listen in and watch a presentation or lecture.

Microsoft 365 corporate vice president Jared Spataro said in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, communities around the world were fast evolving into an era of “remote everything”, a hybrid model of work, learning and life.

“We have spent the last few months learning from our customers and studying how they use our tools and as we all scramble to keep up, the future of work and education is being shaped before our eyes,” he said.

As schools closed sending children home, Google enhanced online safeguards enabling stay-at-home children and adults to browse safely.

Google country director Agnes Gathaiya said online access for children at home meant higher internet controls were necessary to keep children safe from online including cyberbullying, hacking, phishing, and exposure to inappropriate material for the younger users.

Speaking in Nairobi when they launched a ‘How to be Safe Online’ children-friendly book and their ‘Do Your Part #BeCyberSmart campaign last October, Ms Gathaiya said internet users should desist from sharing personal information and password in suspect websites especially when using public wi-fi to access the net.

On its part, IT, networking and cybersecurity solutions firm, Cisco said online has become the frontline overnight, “the obvious appeal of contactless technologies, long-term resiliency of companies and is fast changing consumer behaviours.”

Seacom East and North East Africa managing director Tonny Tugee says Kenyan companies must invest in reskilling employees to avert disenfranchisement and allay fears of retrenchment thereby preserving a company’s heritage.

“What business leaders should be doing is finding ways to retain and educate employees, not seeking to replace them. Those with repetitive jobs should be sought out and taught new skills,” he says.

With remote working becoming the norm, panAfrican IT solutions company, Liquid Telecom announced rollout of Taara, a wireless optical communication links.

Riding on its Pan African fibre optic network, Liquid Telecoms chief executive Nic Rudnick said trials conducted in Kenya showed encouraging results where underserved areas were provided with huge bandwidths attracting new investments and generating new jobs in remote regions away from major cities and towns.

“Every time we have connected a new country to our fibre network, our investment into middle mile infrastructure has enabled people outside of the major cities and towns, to enjoy high speed data,” he said.

The development will further intensify scramble for ‘online’ customers now using smartphone-internet platforms to access financial, entertainment and education services.

Taara’s wireless optical communication links use beams of light to deliver high-speed, high-capacity connectivity over long distances at speeds as high as 20 gigabits per second as opposed to the traditional fibre that uses light to carry data through cables in the ground.

Mr Tugee adds that mooting of fitness mobile apps among other health apps enables harvesting of vast amounts of health-related data that is now used to improve public health outcomes while online learning is currently being considered as a fallback in case of aggravated Covid-19 scenario.

Mr Spataro said the upgrades enable virtual interactions where people in class and at work ‘connect’ in realtime reducing meeting fatigue associated with monologues.

The new features include , the Together Mode to be availed to users starting August 1 apply AI segmentation technology to digitally place participants in a shared background making it feel like attendees are in the same room.